Blog #1: Education in Leadership and Sustainability

Normally, leadership is a tricky subject to teach and explain and when there is a small language barrier added to the challenge, it adds a needed bit of creativity. Thankfully, the students we met today were ready to listen and already very informed in leadership through their previous education and experience. We went to Mount Carmel High School, got a tour of their unique classes and opportunities, and had a chance to share with them the five leadership practices from Kouzes and Posner's book, The Student Leadership Challenge.
During our tour, we were able to see some of the sustainability efforts they have in place. At Mount Carmel, they have a wide range of elective classes that the students can attend. Some of these are wood shop, home economics, electrical work, gardening, and computer class. These give the students an opportunity to learn skills that they can take back home and implement. In sustainability, education is a large part, and in Andres R. Edward's book, The Sustainability Revolution,  education is in addition to the three E's of sustainability. These students are learning practices of sustainability through their education. They are helping future generations by learning to use natural resources to provide for themselves in an environmentally healthy way. This is exactly what Edwards was talking about in his book. He says that "Through education, sustainability can become firmly established within the existing value structure of societies while simultaneously helping that value structure evolve toward a more viable long-term approach to systemic global problems" (23). Sustainability is a critical part of their learning structure.
For sustainability, there needs to be good leaders to rally people towards a common goal and pave the way within the family, community, or even the culture. That is what we worked on with the students today at Mount Carmel. We educated them and gave them activities to strengthen their leadership skills. I loved getting to know them and wish we had more time to really learn who they are. They were extremely friendly, responsive, intelligent, and hard-working throughout the activity. My group and I had the teams work together on an activity involving a tarp. The goal was to stand on the tarp and without touching the ground surrounding the tarp, flip the tarp completely over to be able to stand on the underside. They had to be completely silent in the process as an added challenge. The students had to use skills of modeling the way, inspiring a shard vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. All of the groups were successful and hopefully they learned something in the process. Their education as leaders is almost as important as their sustainability education, but you really need both to succeed in preserving the gift of nature in this world.